Chernobyl

Glowing light emerged from the fog of the Basin and scrawny, misted, fingers reached out along its borders as if demons lurk beyond in the darkness of everything unknown. The land possessed a dark magic that seemed to brew from the heart and expand outward, though it seemed timeless and old, if even very weak. Tiny specks of white light seemed to linger across the ground like a path that was meant to be followed, though Chernobyl avoided such dangers and continued idly toward the heart of the land. It beat with a pulsing devilry that wrapped around her own heart and cooled it with a simplistic ease that was altogether unknown to her tender senses. Cracked lips parted to breath in the pungent scent of the mire, though it turned her stomach with nausea. The slab not only assaulted her faculty but her cleft feet as well. It gathered around her heal and slicked up above her toes before suckling under her weight, destined to repeat itself eternally until her movements had paused or stopped altogether.

This strange new home welcomed her in such a queer way, Chernobyl had nothing left to do but open her blackened sightlessness to this miraculous world of wonder. She felt as if she could get lost among the dark trees, where no one would be able to find her until she felt ready. It wasn’t an awful idea anyhow… though she doubted her new plight to rise above the ashes would find success in such seclusion.

Admonishing herself for the thought, she moved on, enchanted by the sullen atmosphere of the Basin and all that it offered to a broken heart such as herself. Opening her mind to all of the possibilities, if only for a short time after such a long while, she imagined how it would feel to rise from her lowly pedestal and into the high sky of brilliance. Such a longing formed in her gut that seemed to possess her wholly into closing twin black inkwells to the world and dreaming false dreams of glory. There is no glory for you here, return to me…

It was a mere sickening whisper upon the quite breeze, but it caused her to tremble despite the new warmth of Birdsong. Her mother’s vision invaded her mind once more, adoring kisses that turned into passionate love so ill-warranted by her only child. Incestuous fantasies haunted her daily, though now the old mare was a mere temptress to the devil himself. Chernobyl assumed that the horned demon had allowed her mother’s pleading to go on long enough before he finally blessed her with a few parting words that were not so much parting any longer. The bitch had never left and still lingered within her mind, in her heart, and upon her tongue… Life for life, she knew that the haunting would persist until she had taken her last breath. Save me… she thought into the open air, but she was not graced with response, only the quiet rustling of the trees in the breeze.

Around her, the world seemed to close around her and panic set in before there was anything left to say. Her spindly legs stretched before her, unsure of where to run. After all, no amount of running would bring her solace. Instead she froze, a gaunt statuette of the dead, the only thing of any definition being the long twisted horn that sat atop her face, thorns protruding out in ominous warning. To come close could mean pain of the physical nature… though mentally, the mare was capable of infecting those just as she had been ailed by such a horrendous upbringing.

Let me be free! she screamed silently, hoping that one day she would find redemption.

But oh, I'm staring at the mess I made
As you turn, you take your heart and walk away